Cactus Flowers
by Alex Warlorn
Summary: A look into Jezebel’s obsession with James and how it came to be.


Cactus' Flowers  
  
A look into Jezebel's obsession with James and how it came to be.  
  
I know I can't spell pokemon names.  
  
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A husband. That was what mom told me I was going to have, or at least one to be. I didn't really understand what she meant. It was just a new game to me. Nothing serious. She told me he was from a nice and more importantly rich family and that he was perfect for me. I got excited after that. Perfect. What could be more important? It had been hammered into me from my earliest memory that nothing was more important than that single word, perfect. And that was how I was raised. Perfect manners. Perfect appearance. Perfect voice. Perfect family. It was everything.  
  
My parents wouldn't tell me anything else about him except he was my age. She when we finally met I asked him everything I possibly could. His name was James. What a nice name. A proper name. A perfect name. He had a Growlith nick named Growly. He introduced me to him. The first thing that dog did was tackle me and start licking my face. All in fun right? Not when you're starting to wear make up and having a dress worth more than a small house. What was left of my face and my dress after that was nothing to laugh about. It was so ruined my parents actually had it burned! The lecture I got about taking better care of my things was so harsh I didn't want to get within ten feet of that pokemon ever again in case it wanted to jump on me again. So James had to keep Growly away when I visited. Which was quite often. I could tell he hated me for this. For not being able to play with his friend because I was around. I tried to show him that it was nothing personal by bringing my plant pokemon Oddish to visit with me one time. It blew up in my face when it decided that moment to release a cloud of spores in James' face. He had thought I had done on purpose. This, of course, was just fuel to the fire. I was the first to notice how James ignored every rule there was when it came to, well, everything. I tried being subtle at first. But he just ignored it. I decided to go for a direct approach, figuring that if I taught EVERYTHING there was to know that SOME of it might actually stick, I actually made it into a game. Seeing how much I could teach him in one day.  
  
Then came that faithful night when I was teaching him how to properly eat spaghetti. I don't know what it was, but something gave. He up and ran from the house. Screaming for me not to come within a mile of him. He proved the faster runner and I lost him. I didn't see him for the next few days, or the next few days after that. I didn't know what was going on until I finally found out the truth: James had run away. I couldn't believe it. He had just up and left. He had left his parents. Me. Everything. Did he want to be away from me that much? No, that couldn't be it! Maybe he just wanted some alone time.  
  
Two weeks after James disappeared my mom gave me the whip. I looked at it in confusion. What did she want me to do with this? Mom told me I had been too soft with James. I had been too nice. That when people refused to learn things you had to make them learn. So if James wouldn't learn proper equaled nice, he would learn that not proper equaled pain. I couldn't believe what mom was telling me to do! And worse was that she had dad on her side. For one of the few times he was home he joined forces with her and ORDERED that when they found James I was to start treating James like he was an animal that needed taming. And that's what it became. Taming. Not torture I lied to myself. Taming. He would catch on fast and I wouldn't need to do it anymore. I made it into another game. After all, James knew I wouldn't really hurt him would he? I WAS his wife to be after all. And that was I really was. I had been raised to be a bride. Nothing more. Nothing less. It was my entire existence. The only way out of this 'game' was for me to break my engagement to James. And then it would be over. I would be over. What husband would want rejected goods? And my parents would know that too. And I honestly feared for myself if that turn of events came about.  
  
Years past, and I became adept at my game. Then his parents faked their own deaths as bait to draw him back. It worked. Then came what I had long since convinced myself was just a game, just taming, not torment, after all, what proper wife would do that to her husband? Then James, escaped, no other word for it, thanks to Growly, who still gave me shivers when he got close. And he was gone again. Just like that. And I was alone again. He hated me. I knew there was no denying it. He had been all bells and whistles when he got away. So here am I still trapped. Still sentence to play this game I didn't even want to start. I pretend to enjoy it. I pretend to act like this was nothing special, a woman has to look into a mirror every night after all. But the worse isn't that James hates me, I think I could to live with that. What I can't live with is that my act is too good, too well done, every buys it, everyone thinks I enjoying being the monster. Why, or all the things in my life, did this horrible mask have to be the one thing that was beyond a shadow of a doubt, perfect?  
  
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